A couple of texture issues.

[Atman]

Hi! This is very cool mod. brings some new interesting stuff into gameplay and looks good for the most part.

here are a couple of skin issues I noticed:


- Byzantine Dismounted Lathikon (I think I spell it right) with armorUprade 1 have no texture on them, only sky-like lookin specular or something.

- Dismounted Hospitaller knights with armorUpgrade 1 have red armor.

- Italian Generals (battle map) have Celtic-like armor. (other generals also, I think)

- Italian Spear Militia/Crossbow militia with armorUpgrade 1 (I think, but not sure) have Celtic-like helmets.

- New Seljuk units are like from different game, different convention; they are saturated to the max cartoonish color. Are nice, but need to be toned down and detailed more.

- Militia and/or Levy units skins suck donkey balls most of the time (a lot of vanilla bright colors, especially bright white). do not match Knights&Knaves skins.

- Fathimid Caliphate (egypt) seem to have rather few unit types, and some lack skin diversity. there are units where every single soldier has the same skin.


I prolly could help redo some stuff, it's just I don't know how it works technically; where are the UV maps, how to get the model to Zbrush so I can see the skin projected on it and paint.(?)


balancing stuff:

Muslim archers (Sicily) have melee 9 and rather high armor, which makes them as effective as best western heavy infantry.


question:

what's up with the custom battles. I can't select period, it is always set to "all" and every faction has access to every unit in the game.

[aarronpeake]

[quote=Atman;2734268]
- New Seljuk units are like from different game, different convention; they are saturated to the max cartoonish color. Are nice, but need to be toned down and detailed more.quote]

this is somethin i notice to with the new turk units mainly horse ones, and georgian and armenion skins to,

when recruting these it looks like your buying units from rtw not m2tw..

probably the onlything that annoys me in this entire mod

[Socal_infidel]

Hi! This is very cool mod. brings some new interesting stuff into gameplay and looks good for the most part.

here are a couple of skin issues I noticed:


- Byzantine Dismounted Lathikon (I think I spell it right) with armorUprade 1 have no texture on them, only sky-like lookin specular or something.

Yeah, Emperor Basil made me aware of this. Problem is with the mdb entry. Will fix it with next patch/update.

- Dismounted Hospitaller knights with armorUpgrade 1 have red armor.

Red surcoat? Or red armour? I'll take a look at them.

- Italian Generals (battle map) have Celtic-like armor. (other generals also, I think)

The General battle map models use Tyre's Armored Generals. The ones with the breastplate, right?

- Italian Spear Militia/Crossbow militia with armorUpgrade 1 (I think, but not sure) have Celtic-like helmets.

I'm pretty sure I haven't touched these models apart from the skins. I'll have a look when I get the chance.

- New Seljuk units are like from different game, different convention; they are saturated to the max cartoonish color. Are nice, but need to be toned down and detailed more.

Agree they could be toned down a bit. If you can believe it (you probably can), I never so much as used MS Paint let alone PS prior to modding this game. I'm really a noob when it comes to skinning/modelling.

[quote=Atman;2734268] - Militia and/or Levy units skins suck donkey balls most of the time (a lot of vanilla bright colors, especially bright white). do not match Knights&Knaves skins.[quote]

Oui, j'agree. The 'problem' with the AOR units is that they all must share the same texture. For the most part, these are either the vanilla merc or rebel skins or in some instances, Burrek's merc or rebel skins.

- Fathimid Caliphate (egypt) seem to have rather few unit types, and some lack skin diversity. there are units where every single soldier has the same skin.

Their roster does indeed suck. I agree. We'll see what future versions bring.

I prolly could help redo some stuff, it's just I don't know how it works technically; where are the UV maps, how to get the model to Zbrush so I can see the skin projected on it and paint.(?)

Thanks for the offer. I'll PM you in a bit.


balancing stuff:

Muslim archers (Sicily) have melee 9 and rather high armor, which makes them as effective as best western heavy infantry.

Ja mon. This doesn't seem right. Thanks for brining it to my attention.


question:

what's up with the custom battles. I can't select period, it is always set to "all" and every faction has access to every unit in the game.

1] Honestly, I removed the eras so I could test a faction's roster all at the same time. Easier that way than trying out X amount of units from Era 1, then Era 2.

I'm not really a custom battle kind of guy, so it hasn't bothered me.

2] Related to the AOR system again. Basically, to save code and avoid having to create textures for all factions for each unit (a problem, since I'd have to create a Moorish texture for say a longbowmen), all the AOR units have merc status.

This little bit of code in the MDB and the EDU enables all factions to share this unit without having to add MDB entries for each faction. Just add 4 merc status and you're set.

If there's a demand for it, and if I can find the time, I'll try to work on a custom battles EDU like EB has. Or maybe someone could beat me to that punch

Cheers! Thanks for the feedback mate!

[Atman]

thanks for taking my feedback into consideration!

ok, I found mesh converter and exported one into .obj; also converted textures to dds'

but I don't understand where are the UVs and how to project the skin on model in 3d package? have maya, Pshop and zbrush. I'm new to 3d stuff but am dedicated to learning it anyway

[King Yngvar]

I have a small balance issue -> Norse Axemen for Norway?

[Socal_infidel]

I have a small balance issue -> Norse Axemen for Norway?

Yeah, oversight. Sorry

[Atman]

- Dismounted Hospitaller knights with armorUpgrade 1 have red armor.

Red surcoat? Or red armour? I'll take a look at them.

well, I mean red heraldry colors instead of black!

check out this thread; you say you use the skins posted there, but in the mod they are red not black.: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=148781

p.s. unless the ones in black are not hospitaller knights? but this is unlikely.

[Atman]

also, what's the deal with the shields.

for example the new Georgian shields look very blurry in-game (and becuz of that do not match unit skins), so I thought it's a matter of low-res maps; I checked out the texture file and that's not the case, they are very nice there.

maybe that's the matter of saving them differently? stuff like mip-maps, lod? because if you look at other shields (vanilla, burrek's) they look much crisper than the Georgian ones.

[Socal_infidel]

You have an eye for detail, I like that. Doing most of the mod myself, I tend to miss things...

well, I mean red heraldry colors instead of black!

check out this thread; you say you use the skins posted there, but in the mod they are red not black.: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=148781

p.s. unless the ones in black are not hospitaller knights? but this is unlikely.

From this DBA website, it states that the Pope fixed the Hospitallers formal 'uniform' was a red surcoat in times of war.

So I guess the red is technically correct for their ugrades. As they would be around that time frame.

also, what's the deal with the shields.

for example the new Georgian shields look very blurry in-game (and becuz of that do not match unit skins), so I thought it's a matter of low-res maps; I checked out the texture file and that's not the case, they are very nice there.

maybe that's the matter of saving them differently? stuff like mip-maps, lod? because if you look at other shields (vanilla, burrek's) they look much crisper than the Georgian ones.

Shields are definitely lower res than textures. Although, I'm not sure why the Georgians ones are more noticeably so. You're right it could be a problem with the normal map. I'll take a look when I get the chance (am at work right now), unless you wanna beat me to it

Cheers! I appreciate the feedback. And if you get the technical issues sorted out, I could use a good skinner! As I mentioned before, I never used PS prior to this mod. I'm still learning.

[Atman]

A few fixes and cool tweaks on militia skins.

In PDER 1.0 there is some overlooked specular white spot on peasants/militias faces:




I fixed that and also brought some life to their paper-bland faces by a little retouch and stronger normal map.

Added a little more cavity, contrast and a little variety to the armor, + brand new shiny over-the-top normal maps (tm)(c) that make your units look more 3dimensional than ever. I think that the standard normal maps are good for many instances, but not that good for some cases where bump is needed to help display bigger detail and not tiny detail.

fixed faces:


These 'pillowed' pourpoints, or whatever you call it, now look like really 'pillowed':




Added brownish and greyish variations to peasant clothes plus brown color variation to the leather helmet. These worn out felt clothes now look even more threadbared thanks to stronger normal map:



Credits go to original skinner (I think Burrek) since these minor tweaks are obviously based on his cool work.

I also tried working from scratch for levy/sergeant sperman but it's really hit and miss since I can't see them in real-time in my apps..It may look great in PS but then in game it sucks because of uv stretching and in-game detail loss..

any way to export the meshes with uv's to standard obj, or anything that could be converted into max/maya/modo etc.??

to Socal: which mesh do "en_peasant_padded_rebels" use?

EDIT..

get them here:

http://files.filefront.com/militiasp...skins_PDER.zip

Put them into "PDER_1.0\data\unit_models\_units\en_peasant_padded\textures"

[Socal_infidel]

Atman, these are very nice tweaks. Subtle but definitely a dramatic difference. Especially with the padding on those units. There's actually depth to them now.

There's a converter by KnightErrant that allows you to get the MESH -MS3D models into GMAX or 3DSMax. Someone just linked to it in the Mod Workshop Skinning section.

The en_peasant_padded_rebels texture is used by a lot of meshes.

archer_militia
border_horse
crossbow_militia
hobilars
italian_militia
italian_spear_militia
javelinmen
jinetes
levy_spearmen...

Great job. + rep! Rep disabler, eh?

Link to KE's Gmax tool

[Socal_infidel]

Atman, thanks for the links to the textures.

I'm working on an update that I hope to have ready in a week or so. I'll be sure to include these as a lot of the early units are all the AOR militia and levies who use this texture. Much more aesthetically pleasing!

Cheers!

[Atman]

OK, cool!

I actually started working on new ones for levies/sergeant spearmen which currently use vanilla white'n'grey..but probably I won't finish them that quick 'cuz I have to really focus on my diploma work now

anyway from what I've seen milkshape seems it can export models to just about any format without any additional scripts.. the problem is that I can get model in modo but the uv layout is a mess and doesn't really match my dds.

for starters I might just use existing shapes and work on cloth type and colors.